This weekend I went to see a reprint of Metropolis, the famous 1927 Fritz Lang silent film.
The film is so iconic that many scenes looked familiar, and yet there were some scenes that surprised me. I’ve seen the cityscapes before, and of course the well-known the “Machine-Man” robot (an obvious inspiration for Star Wars’ C3PO fifty years later), but I’d never seen the interior design shots before, and some of them were stunning. So were the fabulous art deco futuristic ticker tape machines and the giant underground machines powering the city. I couldn’t find any online pictures that came close to capturing the power of those scenes.
I’ve decided that when I finally have my billions, I’m going to have my office designed to be an exact replica of the one belonging to Joh Fredersen, the ruler (owner? creator? overlord?) of Metropolis. My replica will come complete with vacuum tube powered computing machine on my desk, a staff of identically clad accountants, a “Thin Man” to spy on my workers in their gloomy underground city, and giant analog wall clock keeping metric time.
Even by 2007 standards some of the visuals and special effects are actually pretty impressive. One surprise was that, in contrast to the bold and pathbreaking visuals, the plot was at times, well, a bit cheesy. Overall a great experience.
Here’s a sample of some of the well known Metropolis iconography.
